Vice President Mike Pence got vaccinated for the novel coronavirus on Friday as a way to promote the vaccine to a wary public -- but so far, President Donald Trump has indicated no willingness to do the same.
Appearing on CNN Friday, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman speculated about why Trump appears to be so reluctant to get the vaccine that he has been frantically trying to take credit for.
"I have a theory... I don't think that he wants to be jabbed with a needle on live television," she said. "I just don't. I think that he considers that to be some kind of an act of weakness."
Haberman then said that this would represent yet another instance in which the president passed up an opportunity to show leadership because it might be harmful to his personal image.
"This is one of those moments where none of us particularly want to roll up our arms and have our arms jabbed on television, necessarily, but it is important," she said. "And he is choosing not to do something that could help save lives."
The coronavirus pandemic may be raging in the Houston area, but tens of thousands of students in one district are headed back to the classroom in January because of poor results while learning from home.
The plight of the town of Pasadena is being repeated across America, as educators fret that online learning for children because of the health crisis simply might not work.
Until now families in Pasadena could choose between sending their kids to school or keeping them home for remote learning. Nearly half of the nearly 50,000 students in the school district, from kindergarten to highschool, stayed home.
But their test results after the autumn period of school were disappointing -- 40 percent failed at least one subject, compared to 18 percent of those who attended class in person.
In the 2019-2020 school year, that proportion was 13 percent for all the district's students.
"Both groups are worrying me as far as their ability to get the curriculum basics successfully. But those virtual kids, that’s something that we’re concerned about at this time," said DeeAnn Powell, superintendent of the Pasadena Independent School District.
That district covers a small part of Houston itself, plus the towns of South Houston and Pasadena, which are overwhelmingly Latino.
Powell says the pandemic has made life worse for this already economically challenged demographic.
"Our kids of course are majority low-income," she said in an interview via Zoom.
"When both parents are working, they are less likely to stay home and monitor that the kids are engaged," said Powell. "So I think it is a struggle."
"Sometimes, we find that because of safety reasons the kids aren’t left at home. They might be taken to work with their parents or taken to run errands or engaged in different activities during the day and that’s keeping them away from their assignments," said Powell.
And some adolescents have simply dropped out of school and taken jobs in supermarkets or fast-food restaurants.
To help the poorest families, the districts provides computers and pays for their internet.
But the real problem is getting kids engaged in their classes.
"I’m gonna be real honest. Sleeping in and doing school in your pajamas is easier than getting dressed every day for a day's work at school," said Powell.
'All six feet apart' -
Other school districts in the Houston area have already halted online learning. Others reserve the option, but only for kids with medical reasons to stay home or who get good grades.
In Houston itself, the fourth largest city in the US, parents can still opt for online learning for their children.
As agreed with his parents, one 15-year-old named Lucas Donalson is preparing -- unenthusiastically -- to go back to in person class in January, even if the pandemic is pushing hospitals back to overstretched levels seen during in the summer.
"I don’t think that my safety would have any harm going back to school because we are all six feet apart and I’m already seeing my friends right now," said Lucas.
Schools are taking precautions, with mandatory wearing of masks, social distancing, readily available hand sanitizer and regular cleaning of school facilities.
Lucas admits he did not turn in all of his homework assignments on time while taking his classes online.
But he says teachers are partly to blame -- some are not good at working with computers and communicating with students online.
"In online school, some of my friends did miss some assignments just because there wasn’t anyone to tell them 'you got to do this,' any bells to tell them it’s time to switch classes," said Lucas.
"They sort of fell asleep at the end of the class."
Though African Americans are being hospitalized for COVID-19 at more than triple the rate of white Americans, wariness of the new vaccine is higher in the Black population than in most communities. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted communities of color as a “critical population” to vaccinate. But ProPublica found little in the way of concrete action to make sure that happens.
It will be up to states to make sure residents get the vaccine, but ProPublica reviewed the distribution plans of the nine states with the most Black residents and found that many have barely invested in overcoming historic mistrust of the medical establishment and high levels of vaccine hesitancy in the Black community. Few states could articulate specific measures they are taking to address the vaccine skepticism.
And it could be hard to track which populations are getting the vaccine. While the CDC has asked states to report the race and ethnicity of every recipient, along with other demographic information like age and sex, the agency doesn’t appear ready to apply any downward pressure to ensure that such information will be collected.
In state vaccination registries, race and ethnicity fields are simply considered “nice to have,” explained Mitchel Rothholz, chief of governance and state affiliates for the American Pharmacists Association. While other fields are mandatory, such as the patient’s contact information and date of birth, leaving race and ethnicity blank “won’t keep a provider from submitting the data if they don’t have it.”
In the initial stages, vaccines will go to people who are easy to find, like health care workers and nursing home residents. But barriers will increase when distribution moves to the next tier — which includes essential workers, a far larger and more amorphous group. Instead of bringing the vaccine to them, it’s more likely that workers will have to seek out the vaccine, so hesitancy and lack of access will become important factors in who gets the shots and who misses out.
“There are individuals who are required to be on the front line to serve in their jobs but perhaps don’t have equitable access to health care services or have insurance but it’s a challenge to access care,” said Dr. Grace Lee, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is tasked with issuing guidance on the prioritization of COVID-19 vaccine distribution. “We can build equity into our recommendations, but implementation is where the rubber meets the road.”
Hesitancy is rooted in medical exploitation and mistreatment.
About a quarter of the public feels hesitant about a COVID-19 vaccine, meaning they probably or definitely would not get it, according to a December poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Hesitancy was higher than average among Black adults in the survey, with 35% saying that they definitely or probably would not get vaccinated.
Mistrust of the medical community among people of color is well-founded, stemming from a history of unscrupulous medical experimentation. The infamous Tuskegee study, conducted from 1932 to 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service, still looms large in the memories of many Black Americans, who remember how researchers knowingly withheld treatment from African American sharecroppers with syphilis in order to study the disease’s progression.
But the injustices aren’t confined to the past. The National Academies’ Institute of Medicine has found that minorities tend to receive lower-quality health care than white counterparts, even when adjusting for age, income, insurance and severity of condition. Black Americans are also more likely to be uninsured and utilize primary care services less often than white Americans.
“It’s not just about history. It’s about the here and now,” said Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. “People point to racial injustice across the system. It’s not just hospitals; people don’t trust the government, or they ask about the pharmaceutical industry’s profit motive. From the very beginning, Black and brown people are marginalized from the enterprise of research. They think: ‘So few people look like us in research, industry and academia, why should we trust that someone at that table is thinking of our interest?’”
When it comes to vaccinations, the consequences can be grave. Black and Hispanic people are less likely to get the flu shot than white people, according to the CDC. At the same time, Black Americans have the highest rate of flu-associated hospitalizations, at 68 people per 100,000 population, compared to 38 people per 100,000 in the non-Hispanic white population.
Health officials have tried to assuage vaccine concerns in the traditional way, by publicizing specific individuals receiving the shot. The U.S. began its mass immunization effort by injecting a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine into the left upper-arm of Sandra Lindsay, a Black woman and critical care nurse in New York.
Meanwhile, an onslaught of memes and conspiracy theories characterizing the vaccine as harmful are making the rounds on social media. One reads, “Just had the covid-19 vaccine. Feeling great,” along with the picture of the character from the 1980 movie “The Elephant Man.” Another image circulating on Twitter features the photos of three Black people and claims they are suffering from Bell’s palsy due to the vaccine. The Twitter user who shared the image asked followers, “still want those Tuskegee 2.0 genocide vaccines?”
It may only take one or two negative headlines to further sow fear, said Komal Patel, who has 16 years of experience as a pharmacist in California. After two health care workers in the United Kingdom experienced allergic reactions to Pfizer’s vaccine, Patel said she saw anxiety spike on social media, even though regulators have said that only people with a history of anaphylaxis — a severe or life threatening immune reaction — to ingredients in the vaccine need to avoid taking the shot. “Just two patients, and here we go, there’s all this chatter.”
Key states lack concrete plans to promote vaccines in Black communities.
It falls to states to make sure their residents of color are vaccinated. But the speed at which the vaccine needs to be disseminated means that states haven’t had much time to plan communications efforts, said Lee, from CDC’s advisory group. “How do we make sure messaging is appropriate? You may want to emphasize different messages for different communities. We don’t have the time for that.”
ProPublica found that few states can articulate specifically what they are doing to address vaccine skepticism in the Black community.
Texas, Georgia and Illinois’ state plans make no mention of how they plan to reach and reassure their Black residents. Black communities make up between 13% and 33% of the population in the three states, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. None of the three states’ health departments responded to requests for comment.
California’s state plan includes “a public information campaign … to support vaccine confidence,” but does not provide details apart from the state’s intention to use social media, broadcast outlets and word of mouth. In an email, the California Department of Public Health did not provide additional information about outreach to Black residents, only saying, “this is an important issue we continue to work on.”
New York also broadly suggests it would use public education events and media campaigns to reach vulnerable, underserved and vaccine-hesitant groups, but gives no details. A spokesperson said he would supply more information, but hadn’t responded by Thursday.
“Media outreach is not enough,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “TV ads are one thing, but usually public service announcements are at midnight when nobody is listening, because that’s when they’re free.” Normally, public health officials go to barber shops, beauty salons, bowling alleys and other popular locales to hand out flyers and answer questions, but due to the pandemic and limits on congregating, that’s not an option, Benjamin said, so officials need to plan a serious social media strategy. That could involve partnering with “influencers” like sports figures and music stars by having them interview public health figures, Benjamin suggested.
Dr. Mark Kittleson, chair of the Department of Public Health at New York Medical College, said he’s not surprised to hear how vague some of the state health plans are, because states often focus on providing high-level guidance while county or regional level health departments are left to execute the plan. But he said specific efforts need to be undertaken to reach residents of color. “Spokespeople for the vaccination need to be a diverse group,” Kittleson said. “Dr. Tony Fauci is fantastic, but every state needs to find the leading health care experts that represent the diversity in their own state, whether it’s Native American, African American or Latino.” Kittleson also suggested partnering with churches.“Especially in the African American community, when the minister stands up and says, ‘Folks, you need to take your blood pressure medication and take care of yourself,’ people listen to that,” he said. “The church needs to be brought into the fold.”
Maryland’s state plan acknowledges the distrust among Black and Latino communities as well as rural residents, and says it will aim to tailor communication to each group by working with trusted community partners and representatives of vulnerable groups. A Department of Health spokesperson said in an email that “as vaccination distribution continues to ramp up, we urge all individuals to get the vaccine.”
Florida’s written plan includes a messaging strategy for everyone in the state, but does not specifically address the Black community. A “thorough vaccination communication plan continues to be developed in order to combat vaccine hesitancy,” a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Health said in response to ProPublica’s queries.
In North Carolina and Virginia, however, health officials started preparing months ago to reassure residents about potential vaccines. North Carolina formed a committee in May with leaders from marginalized communities to guide the state’s overall response to the pandemic. Vaccine concerns were a priority, said Benjamin Money, deputy secretary of health services for North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services.
The politicization of the pandemic has mobilized the Black and brown medical scientific community to dig into the research and how the vaccines work, Money said, “so that they can feel assured that the vaccine’s safe and it’s effective and they can convey the message to their patients and to their community constituents.”
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The committee is advising North Carolina officials on their vaccine messaging and hosting a webinar for Black religious leaders. Similarly, the Virginia Department of Health has staff devoted to health equity across racial and ethnic groups and is putting on a series of town hall-style meetings speaking to specific communities of color.
Black residents in Virginia have expressed concerns about how rapidly the early vaccines were developed, said Dr. Norman Oliver, Virginia’s state health commissioner.
“It all boils down to telling people the truth,” Oliver said. “The first thing to let folks know is that one of the reasons why these vaccines were developed so quickly is because of the advances in technology since the last time we did vaccines; we’re not trying to grow live virus and keep it under control or do attenuated virus and develop a vaccine this way.”
In addition to promoting reliable information, Virginia health officials hired a company to monitor the spread of vaccine misinformation in the state and to locate where falsehoods appear to be taking hold, Oliver said. The state hopes to target its communications in places where distrust is most intense.
The CDC has set aside $6.5 million to support 10 national organizations, according to spokesperson Kristen Nordlund. The funds are “to be disbursed by each organization to their affiliates and chapters across the country so they may do immunization-focused community engagement in the local communities they serve,” Nordlund said in an email. She didn’t respond to questions on whether the funds had already been disbursed and to which organizations.
Data collection on the race of vaccine recipients is likely to be incomplete.
Every state has a vaccination registry, where data on administered shots is routinely reported, from childhood vaccinations to the flu shot. What’s new in this pandemic is that the CDC has requested all the data be funneled up to the federal level, so it can track vaccination progress across the nation.
“Race and ethnicity data should be recorded in states’ immunization data, but we do not know how reliably it is collected,” said Mary Beth Kurilo, senior director of health informatics at the American Immunization Registry Association. “We really don’t have good data on how well it’s captured out there across the country.”
Many immunization records are fed into the state’s registry directly from a doctor’s electronic health record system, Kurilo said, which can present technological stumbling blocks: “Is [the data] routinely captured as part of the registration process? Can they capture multiple races, which I think is something that’s become increasingly important going forward?”
When asked about historic rates of compliance and how they planned to gather information on race and ethnicity of vaccine recipients this time, health departments from Georgia, Texas, Illinois, New York, Florida and California didn’t respond.
Maryland’s state plans indicate it intends to use information gathered through its vaccine appointment scheduling system, including demographic data gathered from recipients, to direct its communication outreach efforts. The Maryland Department of Health, which didn’t provide more detailed information, said it is “currently exploring all options as far as vaccine data reporting.”
North Carolina’s immunization records system routinely collects race and ethnicity information, and a spokesperson told ProPublica it has that type of demographic data for 71% of people in the system. Stephanie Wheawill, director of pharmacy services at the Virginia Department of Health, said that providers will be “asked to record that information” but didn’t elaborate on how the department planned to encourage or enforce compliance.
“You’ve got to have the data to compare,” said Martha Dawson, president of the National Black Nurses Association and an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s nursing school. “Because if you don’t have the data, then we’re just guessing. There’s no way to know who received it if you don’t take the data.”
There is tension between gathering enough data to understand the extent of the rollout and the possibility that asking for too much information will scare away people who are already leery of the vaccine.
“The biggest concern people have is how will this information be used?” said Lee, from the CDC’s advisory group. “People need to trust that the data will be used with a good intent. “
Rothholz, with the American Pharmacists Association, said there could be ways apart from state registries to estimate vaccine uptake among minorities. “If I’m a community pharmacy in a predominantly African American community, if I’m giving away 900 or 1000 vaccines, you can track penetration that way,” he said. Geographic-based analysis, however, would depend on the shots being distributed via community pharmacies rather than by mass vaccination sites — a less likely scenario for the Pfizer vaccine, the first to be administered, which requires ultracold storage that will be difficult for many small pharmacies to manage.
It will be up to doctors and community leaders to encourage trust.
Sandra Lindsay, a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, was the first person to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, on Dec. 14. (Mark Lennihan/Pool/Getty Images)
The best way to help a worried individual, whether scared about data collection or the vaccine itself, is a conversation with a trusted caregiver, according to Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the American Medical Association.
“Time and again it’s been shown that one of the most valuable things to encourage a patient to undertake a change, whether it’s stopping smoking or losing weight, is a one-on-one conversation with a trusted caregiver — having your physician saying, ‘I took it and I really want you to take it too,” she said. “But patients have to have the opportunity to ask questions, and not to be blown off or belittled or feel troublesome for asking all their questions.”
“If someone says that they’re afraid of being a guinea pig, maybe drill a bit deeper,” Bailey suggested. “Ask, ‘What are you concerned about? Are you concerned about side effects? Are you concerned that not enough people have taken it?’”
The American Academy of Family Physicians uses the mnemonic “ACT” to guide their members in conversations with patients of color, president Dr. Ada Stewart said in an email: “Be Accountable and Acknowledge both historical and contemporary transgressions against Black, brown and Indigenous communities. … Communicate safety, efficacy and harms such that individuals can weigh their own personal risk to potential benefits, and exercise Transparency with regard to the development of vaccines and the distribution process.”
David Hodge, associate director of education at Tuskegee University’s National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care, urges Black and brown leaders such as pastors and community organizers to take control of the messaging right now and not wait for their local governments to tackle the issue.
“We’re not in a position right now to be patient. We’re not in a position to sit on the sidelines, we have to make it happen.”
Ohio juvenile court Judge Timothy Grendell has been outspoken about his belief that the COVID-19 pandemic is overblown.
At a protest rally in May, just steps away from where he presides over family court, Grendell proclaimed that public health restrictions to contain the pandemic were unconstitutional and “we should be allowed to get back to our lives.” The following month, he testified to state lawmakers in Columbus that health authorities and a “drumbeat” of media coverage had “created an atmosphere of fear” surrounding the virus.
But Grendell hasn’t confined his views to the public square. A few weeks after he testified to lawmakers, he referred to the pandemic as a “panic-ademic” in the midst of a custody proceeding in his courtroom in Geauga County, outside Cleveland. And he has claimed that 15 mothers in his court have used the virus as an excuse in custody cases to “mess with” their exes’ parenting time.
Then, on Oct. 2, Grendell made an order that legal experts call unheard of, and medical experts say could cause harm. The judge banned two parents, who were wrangling over custody of their young boys, from having the “children undergo COVID-19 testing” without his approval, according to the court record.
A doctor subsequently ordered a coronavirus test for one of the boys before admitting him to a children’s hospital for severe breathing problems. When Grendell found out, he threatened to find the mother in contempt of court, a move that could lead to her being thrown in jail.
Legally, judges have wide discretion to resolve disputes between parents. Some courts have issued standing orders that general concerns about COVID-19 should not disrupt established parenting schedules. But medical experts told ProPublica that a COVID-19 test is often essential for health care providers to protect themselves and to decide on the best course of treatment for a patient.
“We are unable to provide the right kind of care without it,” said Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “It’s basically blindfolding us or asking us to take care of someone with an arm tied behind our back.”
Judges around the country have received media attention for their rulings related to the pandemic. ProPublica reported in July that a Michigan judge sent a 15-year-old girl to juvenile detention, ruling she violated her probation by failing to complete her homework while remote learning. The Michigan Court of Appeals ordered her immediate release later that month.
In April, a judge in South Florida temporarily took custody away from a doctor because she treated patients with COVID-19, the Miami Herald reported. In Iowa, a judge sentenced a mother to 10 days in jail for refusing to follow a child visitation ruling due to COVID-19 concerns, according to the Sioux City Journal. And another judge in South Florida required a mom to wear a mask if she wanted to see her child, wrote the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The conflict between public health precautions and individual freedoms has been extreme in Ohio, which was among the first states to issue sweeping health orders to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Rising discontent with the orders this spring led angry citizens to march on the Ohio Statehouse, chanting “Open Ohio” and breaking several windows. Protesters showed up at the suburban Columbus home of Amy Acton, then the director of the Ohio Department of Health. Some carried rifles. One woman carried a sign with an anti-Semitic message aimed at Acton, who is Jewish. Acton later resigned and some conservative lawmakers turned their attention to Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, with some demanding his impeachment and his arrest, to no avail.
Infection numbers were low early on in Ohio, but since October the seven-day average of new daily COVID-19 cases has spiked tenfold, to about 10,000 on Dec. 13. Daily deaths and hospitalizations also have jumped to record highs.
Timothy Grendell, a Republican former legislator who has been on the bench for more than a decade, has long been a polarizing figure in Ohio political and legal circles. That reputation extends to his courtroom. ProPublica has spoken to mothers and grandmothers in four additional cases who said Grendell has been unfair to them. Some said they have filed complaints against him. Investigations are confidential until concluded; Grendell has not been disciplined by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the Supreme Court of Ohio.
In May, Grendell sent Stacy Hartman’s two teenage sons to juvenile detention after they refused a court-ordered visit with their father. The judge also threatened to hold Hartman in contempt of court and jail her if she didn’t take them to the visit, according to a court transcript. Hartman told ProPublica that she begged that her two boys not be locked up during a pandemic. After the local ABC television affiliate reported on the story, Hartman said mothers and some grandmothers started to call her with stories about their cases in Grendell’s courtroom. Each of the cases was different. But Hartman was struck by one similarity: “Everybody is scared about what he is going to do.”
The judge also has been embroiled in public spats, sometimes with other elected or political officials. In one high-profile example, in 2014, he threatened to hold the chairwoman of the Geauga County Republican Party in contempt of court after he learned she had privately characterized him as a “narcissist and mentally ill.” The matter was dropped.
Several family law attorneys told ProPublica that they refuse to take cases in Grendell’s court because they do not believe he treats parties in cases fairly. They asked to speak on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to risk the judge filing a complaint against their licenses.
Grendell declined ProPublica’s request to be interviewed for this story. In his most recent judgment entry, on Dec. 9, he said the mother at the center of the COVID-19 testing case had failed to return the children on several occasions, “using COVID-19 or her concerns about the children and COVID-19 as the reason for not complying with the Court’s orders.”
Through his court administrator, Grendell said that he was prohibited from commenting on pending cases, or about broader accusations related to his conduct. He said his decisions are “always in the best interest of the children” and “based on sound law and the actual facts in the case.” Grendell reiterated that he has seen situations where one parent repeatedly misuses COVID-19 testing and quarantining to prevent the other parent from spending court-ordered time with children.
“The court is fully cognizant of the seriousness of COVID and understands the need for all members of the public to be careful and to engage in the necessary and recommended safeguards,” Grendell said.
Amplifying a Dispute
The pandemic had exacerbated an already tense parenting arrangement between Richard Sherrick and Kimberly Page, who were never married but have two boys who are 6 and 4. The two have lobbed accusations and counteraccusations against each other. Page felt ongoing anxiety about her health and the health of the boys. Medical records she provided to ProPublica document the boys’ chronic conditions, including asthma, autism and other ailments. The boys’ Cleveland Clinic pediatrician had deemed them high risk if they became exposed to the coronavirus.
On four occasions since April, Page said, the boys were quarantined or they had to be taken to the doctor or hospital for treatment, which delayed their return to Sherrick. The delays were typically brief, she said. She said that she communicated with her ex each time, and that there have been times in the past when he had delayed returning them to her.
Sherrick and his attorney, Robert Zulandt, did not return multiple requests from ProPublica to comment. In court, Sherrick has accused Page of using visits to doctors and hospitals as an excuse to keep the boys longer than her allotted parenting time. He also has alleged that his ex is obsessive to the point that it creates fear and anxiety for the children and that she has had the children overtreated and tested for COVID-19 and other illnesses. She has disputed those characterizations.
After Grendell issued his ruling prohibiting a COVID-19 test without his permission, Page contacted Geauga County Health Commissioner Tom Quade to talk about it. Quade told ProPublica that he reached out to his agency’s lawyer but ultimately decided not to get involved because the order didn’t apply to his agency, which does not provide COVID testing.
Quade said he did not have all the details about the judge’s order, but it seemed consistent with Grendell’s “this is a big nothingburger” feeling about COVID-19. In their mostly rural county of about 90,000 people, the judge and his wife have repeatedly made public comments that minimize the health threat of the pandemic, he said.
The judge’s order banning the two parents from having their sons tested for COVID-19 without court approval.
Family court judges like Grendell have wide discretion to make decisions in the best interests of children in the middle of custody or abuse cases, experts say.
There are times a judge could issue orders that either require medical treatment or forbid it, like if a child had terminal cancer and the parents disagreed about treatment, said Sharona Hoffman, co-director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University. But those types of decisions are generally made after a judge hears evidence from both sides on the issues, Hoffman said. In this case, Grendell made the order on his own motion, without a specific request from either parent to ban the test.
“There is no downside to getting a COVID test,” Hoffman said.
The danger of the judge’s order, if followed, is that it might lead to one of the boys not getting medical treatment he needs, said Michelle Mello, a health law and policy professor at Stanford University. What’s striking from a medical-legal perspective, Mello said, is that the child’s test was given during a hospital visit. “It’s standard of care,” Mello said. “Nobody gets into a hospital and around other patients without a COVID test. There’s a public health reason.”
Page said her attorneys warned her against taking her child to the hospital on Nov. 2 for fear of violating the judge’s order. But her son’s breathing was so labored that she and her new husband, a doctor, believed he had to go to Akron Children’s Hospital. The child was administered a COVID-19 test before being admitted and treated during an overnight stay. The test was negative.
The hospital declined to comment about the case, but said in a statement that it performs COVID-19 tests when they are deemed medically necessary and on patients who are admitted with respiratory symptoms.
Saying Page had failed to return the children on time, Sherrick filed an emergency motion with the judge for custody of the children. The next day, Grendell suspended Page’s custody and sent his constable to the hospital to retrieve the child and hand him off to his father. The child’s younger brother was picked up from the home of Sherrick’s mother.
About a week later, Grendell ordered Page to appear before him “to show cause why you should not be held in Contempt of Court for failing to abide by parenting time … and for failing to abide by the order prohibiting COVID-19 testing, unless approved by the Court first.”
On Nov. 20, Grendell issued a new interim order that the children could be tested if they had symptoms and if their pediatrician recommended it. That same day the court ordered supervised visitation. Page has disagreed about the parameters suggested for visitation, so she still has not seen her children.
Page’s attorney said she could still be held in contempt of court, for violating the original order not to have the children tested for COVID-19. Hearings in the case have been delayed until January.
“Panic-ademic”
Grendell’s no-testing order wasn’t the first time COVID-19 had been a point of contention in the case.
Page accused Sherrick of failing to provide adequate medical care for the boys, and her parenting time included multiple visits to doctors and emergency rooms. Page’s medical records show they have undergone five tests for COVID-19 between them.
In a June 29 hearing, Grendell dismissed the virus as a relevant factor: “There is zero evidence that COVID is a danger to 6-year-olds — zip,” Grendell said, according to the court reporter’s transcript of the hearing.
Page had a fever the day before the hearing, a possible symptom of COVID-19, so she sat in her car. Grendell accused her and other mothers — at least 15 total, he said — of improperly using the virus as “a reason to mess with” the parenting time of fathers. “So this is like the cause du jour,” Grendell said. “Hey, you know, I want to mess with the ex or with the dads, since most of these people never married, and COVID-19 gives me an excuse to mess with his parenting schedule.”
Earlier in the pandemic, the COVID-19 “fear factor” made sense, Grendell continued. But now that it was “almost July 1st, it’s not doing much for me,” he said.
Before COVID-19, people brought home colds and diseases every day, he said, branding the pandemic a “panic-ademic.”
The transcript from a June 29 hearing shows Grendell expressing views on the pandemic in court.
Near the conclusion of the hearing, Grendell issued a threat: “I’m going to make this crystal clear,” he said. “The next person who doesn’t follow the orders is going to see a contempt citation coming their way.”
Friction between Page and Sherrick continued. She thought it was too risky for her elder son to attend school in person. He wanted her to stop scheduling so many medical appointments for the children, which delayed their return to him. On Sept. 23, Page went to Sherrick’s home and picked up the child to take him to the hospital, according to a court filing, and was late returning him to Sherrick. Sherrick filed a handwritten motion the next day, claiming Page had a pattern of not returning the boys, and asking for custody.
Grendell then personally called Page’s cellphone, and left a voicemail, saying Sherrick said the child needed to be returned, and instructing her to call him. “I certainly would like an explanation, and I don’t believe COVID at this time period is a legitimate one,” he said on her voicemail, which was provided to her attorneys and ProPublica. It is highly unusual for a judge to call a litigant in a proceeding directly. Grendell did not return ProPublica’s request to comment about the voicemail.
Grendell’s order prohibiting testing for COVID-19 came about a week later. The evidence in the dispute still has not been heard in court.
“He Knows He Makes the Rules”
Page said she reached a breaking point after losing custody of her children and being accused of contempt of court. One set of attorneys warned her not to speak publicly about her case and withdrew from representing her after she ignored their advice.
As a mother, Page said she felt she had to speak out because attorneys have been reluctant to challenge Grendell and without that, she can’t see the case getting resolved fairly. “This judge needs to be held accountable to somebody other than our family,” Page said.
Lax states are attracting shoppers and students from stricter neighbors — and sending back COVID-19 cases. The imbalance underscores the lack of a national policy.
Page’s new attorney, Lee Potts, said when he took over the case he understood it was complicated. But the blanket order prohibiting COVID-19 testing seemed to “come out of nowhere.”
Since Grendell himself made the motion, it made Potts wonder: “Who is telling you this stuff? How are you getting this information?”
Though Sherrick did not respond to requests for comment, his mother, Bonnie Sherrick, lamented the effect the case is having on her grandchildren. She said that her son, as well as Page and Grendell, have all contributed to the problems, but that there’s no reason Page should be penalized for properly managing the medical conditions of the children. “She has been a good mother,” Sherrick said of Page.
Nobody seems to be able to stop Grendell, Bonnie Sherrick said of the judge. “He knows he makes the rules.”
President Donald Trump wanted larger direct payments to Americans in the next stimulus bill, but his White House advisors reportedly talked him out of it.
"White House aides intervened Thursday to prevent President Trump from issuing a statement calling for substantially larger stimulus payments for millions of Americans, according to two people granted anonymity to share details of the private exchange," The Washington Postreported Thursday.
"On a phone call Thursday afternoon, Trump told allies that he believes stimulus payments in the next relief package should be “at least” $1,200 per person and possibly as big as $2,000 per person, the officials said. Congressional leadership is currently preparing a stimulus package that would provide checks of $600 per person," the newspaper reported. "Trump was in the middle of formally drafting his demand for the larger payments when White House officials told him that doing so could imperil delicate negotiations over the economic relief package, the officials said. Congressional Republicans have insisted that the relief bill remain less than $1 trillion, and it’s currently designed to cost around $900 billion. Larger stimulus checks could push the package’s total over $1 trillion."
The report came after a rise in unemployment filing.
On Thursday, the Tampa Bay Timesreported that drug maker Pfizer, one of the main manufacturers of COVID vaccines, has directly contradicted the claim from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) that shipments of the vaccine are "on hold" to his state.
"Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that Florida could receive less than the 452,000 does of the coronavirus vaccine that the state was expecting because of a 'production issue' on the part of a vaccine manufacturer," reported Kirby Wilson and Steve Contorno. "DeSantis said that two shipments of the vaccine slated to be sent to Florida in the coming weeks are 'on hold right now.'"
This is directly at odds with a statement put out by Pfizer, which states that, “Pfizer is not having any production issues with our COVID-19 vaccine, and no shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed. This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. Government to the locations specified by them. We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.”
"DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday," said the report. "DeSantis said Tuesday the state was expecting 205,000 doses of the vaccine to be shipped the week of Dec. 21, followed by 247,000 more the week after."
Pfizer's vaccine, along with a competing vaccine from Moderna, are a daunting logistical challenge for federal and state officials as they try to work out which vulnerable groups have first priority to ensure the least spread of the disease.
The Covid-19 pandemic has fuelled a rise in fatal drug overdoses in the United States, officials said Thursday, stressing that essential medical services have to remain accessible despite coronavirus disruptions.
More than 81,000 drug overdose deaths were recorded in the US in the year to May, the highest number ever in a 12-month period, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
It said the latest data showed an acceleration of overdose deaths since the pandemic took hold at the start of the year.
"The disruption to daily life due to the COVID-19 pandemic has hit those with substance use disorder hard," said CDC director Robert Redfield.
"As we continue the fight to end this pandemic, it's important to not lose sight of different groups being affected in other ways. We need to take care of people suffering from unintended consequences."
More than 500,000 Americans have died of opioid overdoses -- both prescription and non-prescription -- since 1999.
Corporate drugmakers such as Purdue Pharma have been taken to court on criminal charges over their drives to push unnecessary sales of prescription opioids, which stoked a nationwide addiction crisis.
Illicitly manufactured fentanyl has been the primary cause of the recent increase in overdose deaths, the CDC said.
On Wednesday, Canada said it had also seen a jump in opioid deaths this year.
Experts said opioid users faced increased risk in part because of unemployment and homelessness during the pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic has reached federal death row, according to a new report by the Associated Press.
"A federal prisoner scheduled to be executed just days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office has tested positive for coronavirus, his lawyer said Thursday. The Bureau of Prisons notified attorneys for Dustin John Higgs on Thursday that their client had tested positive for the virus, his attorney Devon Porter said during a court hearing Thursday afternoon," the AP reported.
"Higgs is scheduled to be executed Jan. 15, just five days before death-penalty opponent Joe Biden’s inauguration. Higgs is the last of those currently scheduled to be executed in a series of federal executions that began in July. The Trump administration will have executed more people in a single year than any other administration in more than 130 years," the AP reported. "Higgs’ diagnosis marks the first known coronavirus case on federal death row and raises the possibility that his execution could be delayed by a judge if his condition deteriorates. His lawyers have previously raised concerns about the possibility their client would contract the virus and could present complex health issues ahead of the execution."
President-elect Joe Biden in November announced that Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) will be a senior adviser and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.
On Thursday, the Biden transition announced that Richmond had tested positive fore coronavirus.
Richmond was a Louisiana legislator prior to being elected to Congress, where he once chaired the Congressional Black Caucus.
The diagnosis was reported by Bloomberg News correspondent Jennifer Jacobs and Politico reporter Alex Thompson.
President Donald Trump's Dept. of Veterans Affairs is throwing away extra coronavirus vaccine found in vials from Pfizer that are designed to provide five inoculations.
Why?
"Inventory monitoring."
Just one day after the doctors and nurses started inoculating Americans with the desperately-awaited coronavirus vaccine, reports started coming in that many vials, which hold five injections, had enough extra for one or two more. Two more injections from a five-injection vial is literally an extra 40%, which means up to an extra 40% of Americans could be protected from the deadly disease earlier than first expected.
With inventory of the vaccine low, and delays expected after President Donald Trump passed on purchasing millions of more doses from Pfizer, the extra vaccine is literally a lifesaver.
Except to President Donald Trump's Dept. of Veterans Affairs.
An internal memo obtained by Radio.com (formerly CBS Radio) reveals the VA "is planning to discard additional doses of the coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer vials that arrived overfilled, despite Food and Drug Administration guidance to use all doses during the public health emergency."
Officials at Veterans Affairs say they "argued using the extra doses could jeopardize future allocations of the vaccine."
"VA officials don't want medical staff to administer more than the five doses per vial, and any additional doses should be 'discarded,' according to a memo obtained by Connecting Vets, which was sent to Veterans Health Administration pharmacy chiefs and others at the department Thursday morning."
But the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates vaccines, has publicly directed medical professionals to use all the vaccine available.
"CDC is requiring strict inventory monitoring of this product," the VA memo reads. "Drawing extra doses will make the data questionable."
"Sending what appears to be inaccurate data to CDC may jeopardize VA's ability to get additional allocations of product in the future," the memo, from Jennifer L. Zacher, adds.
Nearly 4000 Americans died from COVID-19 just yesterday. Over 310,000 Americans have already been killed by the coronavirus.
To cope with an influx of coronavirus patients, a hospital in Reno in the western US state of Nevada has transformed two floors of a nearby parking garage into a care unit dealing with patients experiencing less severe symptoms.
The space gives Renown Health Hospital patients and staff a secure environment that has direct access to key hospital facilities -- lab, pharmacy, food services -- while freeing up intensive care unit beds in the main building for the most severe cases.
The site was constructed in just 10 days back in April, when specialized companies were brought in to fit two levels of the indoor lot with new flooring and the necessary electrical, water and ventilation equipment.
It was finally activated last month, with the western US region becoming the latest disease epicenter and cases soaring in Nevada -- currently the sixth-worst-hit US state by cases per capita, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The "alternative care site" has more than 1,400 beds, separated from one another by screens.
Hours before it was opened on November 12, controversy erupted as one doctor tweeted a selfie showing unused new beds still in their plastic wrappings -- leading conspiracy theorists to label it a "fake hospital."
The claim was amplified by Donald Trump, who retweeted the false allegation with the added caption "Fake election results in Nevada, also!" Twitter swiftly labeled the US president's post as "disputed."
By Wednesday, the adapted parking lot visited by an AFP journalist had treated 350 patients, with 24 currently using the facility, according to hospital officials.
Nevada has recorded nearly 200,000 cases of coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, including 2,673 deaths.
There are millions of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doses sitting in warehouses because the Trump administration has not yet told the pharmaceutical company where to ship the medicine, the company said Thursday.
“Pfizer is not having any production issues with our COVID-19 vaccine, and no shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed. This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. Government to the locations specified by them. We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses," the company said in a statement.
"We have continuously shared with Operation Warp Speed (OWS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through weekly meetings every aspect of our production and distribution capabilities. They have visited our facilities, walked the production lines and been updated on our production planning as information has become available," Pfizer wrote. "We remain confident in our ability to deliver up to 50 million doses globally this year and up to 1.3 billion next year, and we look forward to continuing to work with the US Government to deliver our vaccine to the American people.”
Pfizer released the statement after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told CNBC that the pharmaceutical company was “going to need help from us on their manufacturing.”
“We don’t have complete visibility into their manufacturing because they have kept that a bit more arm’s length,” the Trump official claimed.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Pfizer had told the Trump administration it could not provide substantial additional vaccine doses until the summer.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was baffled to hear that Pfizer had vaccines sitting on the shelves.
“I don’t know what to say about that,” the governor told WEBZ. “I have not had any direct conversations with the people who control those doses. Our (Illinois Department of Public Health) talks to the federal government every day and we’ve not been informed why the federal government is not drawing down those vaccines.”
McConnell, who has held up COVID-19 stimulus funds for Americans for seven months now wants to slice further assistance ahead of the Christmas holiday. The angry and stingy miser depicted in Charles Dickens' holiday novella "A Christmas Carol," has been depicted over the years for
"While Congress debates whether to give Americans $600 or $700 each in a coronavirus aid package — approximately half the amount they received earlier this year — new unemployment numbers show that Americans are out of work far above levels seen in other recessions, and since the summer millions of Americans have entered into poverty," wrote Wade. "Despite that, Congress has not issued direct cash payments to Americans since $1200 checks were distributed in April. Instead, the Senate and House have gone back and forth on different proposals for aid packages throughout the fall without reaching a consensus."
Everyone has said that they want direct payments to Americans. The House wants it. The Senate wants it. The president wants it. The only person standing in the way is Scrooge McConnell.
Beyond Wade's observation, the description seems remarkably accurate. Last month, McConnell promised the press said that he hasn't faced any health issues, was seen with purple lips, bruises on his face and a hand that had turned a dark purplish covered in bandages. It's an ironic health problem given Dickens' description of Scrooge"
"The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice," the book reads.
McConnell's COVID-19 stimulus proposal wasn't even considered by the House, White House and Senators who were working on a deal. Slate described the proposal so bad that it was "worse than doing nothing."
McConnell spent nearly a decade hoarding government funds with the exception of the corporate bailout in 2017 that Republicans claimed would be a genius tax cut to help Americans. It failed.
Dickens describes Scrooge as "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint,… secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster."
News broke Wednesday when emails were published from President Donald Trump's appointee Paul Alexander told higher-ups that there was no way to stop the COVID-19 spread. His solution, the emails revealed, were, "We want them all infected," he said about "infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle-aged," who he falsely said, "have zero to little risk."
States and municipalities have had to foot the bill for so much of the pandemic as Congress tied so many strings to what funds could be spent on from the first stimulus. Now those funds are about to sunset before some cities have been able to wade through the legal paperwork and fully distribute the money. All Congress would have to do is reallocate those unspent funds and if they felt taken by the holiday spirit, kick in a little bit more. McConnell said no.
“If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population," said Scrooge in the Dickens' classic.
Meanwhile, without the law, eviction moratoriums will lapse and people will be removed from their homes in the dead of winter. For those able to hold onto their homes, the high cost of heat could quickly become a luxury. Still, McConnell said no.
“There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!” Scrooge proclaimed.
Despite his chant of "Bah! Humbug!" Scrooge eventually found the light.
“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”
